Community of Our Lady of Peace

04/18/2015

Where Do You Think They Are?

Part Ancestry, part Google, and part Facebook: It's the Our Lady of Peace version of Genealogy Road Show. Tracking down descendants of the original founders and benefactors, who wrote letters of support and signed the online petition to save the church, was a formidable task. Members of the special events team, organized by Tami Ellen McLaughlin, compared names against a list of Italian immigrants and Irish American friends of the first pastor - the people who contributed their hard-earned dollars so that Father Philip Leone could buy the church building in 1919.

The team gathered names from the pews, stained glass windows, and the marble tablets in the vestibule that are carved with the amounts that were donated. Then they searched for addresses and phone numbers - with only a name, a city, and a state - and gathered to address and affix special stamps on "Save the Date" postcards for the Founders' Day Procession, Mass, and Italian Heritage Celebration on Sunday, April 26.

Members of the special events team, Amy Kurz and her children, Megan and Ian, sat down to share their thoughts about their descendant research project.

"If I'm going to spend hours of my life doing anything, I would like to spend it doing work for my church,” said Ian, who is 12.

"It’s really exciting to see the names pop up when you search for the people who donated to help start the Church of Our Lady of Peace," his sister Megan, 14, added. "To know that those people before us wanted to help this church open, the same as us wanting to keep this church open, is the coolest thing ever.Although we are alive in different times, we love and support this church. It’s fun to have the privilege to support one of the houses of God and preserve our parish community."

"Ian and I totally agreed that we couldn't have said it any better than Megan!" Amy said.

In a special architectural and historical report commissioned by the Friends of Our Lady of Peace, preservationist Gregory Dietrich noted that a seamstress topped the list of benefactors:

"One of the early founders was Teresa Iacovone, a local dressmaker who had a store in the area and donated $1,000 to help finance the building of the church—more than any other founder. Her donation would inspire both individuals and local businesses to follow suit so that by December 1918 Rev. Leone had raised enough funds to acquire the former Church of the Redeemer for $40,000."

That donation was worth the equivalent of at least $20,000 during the First World War.

But daughters and descendants of women, like Teresa Iacavone, are a greater challenge to find, as Janice Dooner Lynch, a third generation parishioner and avid family genealogist, knows well. To find one of her assignments, Janice turned to Ancestry to search for the descendants of one of the first trustees of Our Lady of Peace, Carmine De Gasero. Assuming that De Gasero was most likely around 50 years of age to have contributed $600 as a benefactor, Janice refined her search.

"I struck out," Janice said. "No Carmine De Gasero appeared in any censuses between 1880 and 1940, nor could I find him on any ship manifests of immigrants to the U.S. during this same period. There was one more possibility--searching the family trees of Ancestry members to see whether someone had included Carmine De Gasero as a family member. Well, I did just that, and instead of striking out, I struck gold!"

As a result of finding a family tree with Carmine De Gasero's name, Janice was able to send a message to his granddaughter, Antoinette, through the member connect feature on Ancestry and inform her about the Founders' Day Celebration. Soon Janice was in contact with both Antoinette and her brother, Edward, who is planning to attend the event with his family.

"I got on line and saw the beautiful Our Lady of Peace Church," Antoinette wrote. " I also saw the plaque with the names of the trustees and founders. I was so honored to see my grandfather's name listed and that he was a part of its beginning. I do not want to see it merge with any other - it should stay as it is - it's a part of our heritage and history. I will pray to the Blessed Mother to help in keeping this beautiful church opened for future generations."